Post by Zola Rhomdaen on Dec 3, 2023 10:26:46 GMT
Midday to late afternoon are the hours during which the Temple of Selûne in Castleside is the quietest. Even most of the acolytes seem to be absent — probably taking daytime naps — when Zola walks in through the open doors. Fingers worrying at the skirt of her dress, she heads straight for a certain alcove off to the side from the main worship chamber.
She finds Sod kneeling on the floor before Goldbody — not speaking, just looking up at him whilst his mangled face stares back. There is an odd moment of stillness between the two before Goldbody glances up at their newest visitor. Sod spins around.
“Zola!” she cries out and runs over to hug the drow warrior’s leg.
“Hey, Sod!” Zola chuckles and bends down to give the kobold a proper, full-body hug, then nods at Goldbody. There appears to be more gold coins and trinkets in the alcove than the last time she was here. “Hi, Goldbody. Got more…donations, I see?”
Goldbody nods as Sod answers, “Oh, there have been so many nice people coming by lately!”
“That’s good to hear,” Zola says, though the thought crosses her mind that Velania may not have been too pleased about that. The small smile on her face fades as she purses her lips. “Um, listen, Sod. I have… Well, I learned something about what happened to your home.”
“You… You have?” The excited tone in Sod’s voice immediately vanishes, replaced by concern and a hint of upset.
Zola goes to sit on the floor beside Goldbody and pats a spot next to her for Sod. There is a moment of hesitation from Sod as she looks between Zola and Goldbody, before coming over and sitting down next to Zola.
“I promised you a story, didn’t I? So here’s one you can listen to,” Zola says to the golden elf. Then she looks at Sod again and takes a deep breath. “Okay, so I answered this job notice from a man living in the Dwarven Quarter. It’s just a few blocks from here. He said his basement went missing — the walls just closed in and it shrunk and disappeared, like what you said about your home. When we went inside his house, every inch of it was covered in dirt. This…lifeless, inert dirt coming from nowhere. And then, when we weren’t paying attention, every window and door in the house was blocked by walls of earth and we were trapped.”
Sod looks worried.
“When we were exploring the house, there were these tiny holes in the ground, like an inch-wide, as if something had been burrowing in and out of there. Did you ever notice anything like that in your home, Sod?”
She looks confused. “Tiny holes? Ummm… No? I don’t think so. The ground just kept coming in all the time.”
“Hmm, okay. Where was I? Oh, yeah, we were about to investigate one of those holes when I just…fell. I just fell down suddenly. When I came to, Heret, Jax, and I were in a dark, cramped tunnel and there was something huge coming towards us. It was this massive worm creature with purple skin and a star-shaped face. Did you ever see anything like that?”
“No! Was it a purple worm? I heard about them but never seen one!”
“No, not a purple worm. I’ve fought those before and this worm looked different, it looked like it came from the Far Realm. But it didn’t have an aberrant smell on it, and when it swallowed me, I didn’t end up in any kind of stomach, I was getting buried alive under tons and tons of earth.”
Zola pauses to cough into a fist. Rubbing and massaging her throat, she wipes her watering eye with the back of her hand. She can almost still taste the bitter dirt on her tongue, the phantom clumps of earth lodged in her windpipe.
Sod looks a little sad again. “That’s what I was scared of… It felt like everything was going to swallow me up. I tried to dig out but could never make it. Then one day I suddenly fell through and woke up in the tunnels where you found me.” She goes quiet for a moment. “Ummm, if I’m honest, I’m a little scared to go back underground now I’m out. I’ve always been underground but now it…it doesn’t feel safe.”
Zola nods sympathetically. “Yeah, I understand that, Sod. But it doesn’t seem like even above-ground is safe. You see, the worm wasn’t real. The three of us were actually trapped inside a crystal. The dwarf who hired us had brought it over from Faerûn when he moved here and it was on display in the basement. He said that one day, its colour turned black, and then the earth started coming in. This thing…this Something…was using the crystal as its focus. If Mendal and Beets hadn’t found and destroyed that crystal, I don’t know what would’ve happened to us.”
Sod frowns and stares down at her feet, clearly concerned that the surface world is not safe now either. However, Zola is too lost in her own thoughts to notice.
“I didn’t realise what It was until It was gone…” she continues, speaking to no one in particular. “It’s Something, but it’s a different Something. I-I-I can’t explain it.”
Her mothers never told her that there were more Somethings out there. Well, they never said a single word to her about The Something. She should have guessed that they were hiding more from her than just the story of her adoption.
She wants to be angry at them. She is trying to be. But she can’t. She just…misses them. So much.
“Are… Are you okay, Zola?”
“Huh?” Zola blinks and her attention snaps back to Sod, who is looking up at her, confused. “Oh, sorry, yeah. Just thinking aloud there.” She lays a hand on the little kobold’s back. “Don’t worry, Sod. The adventurers of the Dawnlands are strong and smart. We’ll put an end to this.”
“I’m okay. I feel much safer here now.” Sod puts on a brave smile, though a twitch in her snout betrays the lingering worry. She only wants to impress Zola.
Zola smiles back, but it is as false as Sod’s own.
Later that night, sitting in a chair in the centre of Town Hall, she does not give the same smile to Aurelia Archselon and Balto Thundercog. Both Councillors are seated behind a long table across from her, staring at her with grim expressions. Aurelia pinches the bridge of her nose, already stressed by what she’d just heard.
“Thank you for your testimony, Lady Zola.” Lord Jaezred Vandree steps back into her field of vision, standing before the Council — or rather, the only two members who could make this short-notice meeting. She focuses on the sight of his back, a small and brief refuge from the Councillors’ naked stares. “Before we proceed, does anyone have any questions for her ladyship?”
Thundercog is the first to speak. “So it’s dead? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Not dead. It left,” replies Zola.
“And why did it take so long for anyone to bring this forward? People are being put at risk here!”
“No one was aware of what had been causing these incidents until Lady Zola was on the scene, Captain,” Jaezred says. “Now we know that Something Buried is here in the Dawnlands, maybe with more of its kin. As such, we the delegation from the Witching Court are sharing everything we know of these things with the Daring Council.”
“Seems to me if you really knew these things were around, you could have come much sooner with this information—”
Aurelia, finally seeming to stop her thinking, lays a hand on Thundercog’s shoulder. “They are not bound to tell us, Captain, and the larger issue is what we do now… What else can we expect? More of these…Somethings? How many more? And what are they doing?”
“Indeed, you must expect more Somethings to show themselves in the coming weeks, Archmage. They respond to one another in a way we do not yet understand; their current agitation was triggered by Something Lonely losing its home and getting loose.”
Zola tries not to squirm at that. She squeezes her hand tightly, nails digging into her palms.
If only I hadn’t asked questions about my birth parents. Maybe then, none of this would be happening.
But at the same time…
She hears a soft rustling sound as Jaezred unrolls a parchment scroll that he’d been holding. “We know of nine Somethings: Lonely, Twisted, Vast, Lurking, Violent, Dark, Buried, Greedy, and Corrupt. The one that was just here in the city, as I mentioned, was Something Buried. Additionally, there was an incident a few months ago in our own lands that we now suspect to have been the work of a Something — a nature spirit going berserk and causing the deaths of a few civilians by acid burns. Likely it was Something Corrupt, though it had also escaped and its current whereabouts are unknown.”
“Escaped?” Thundercog barks. “So how do we kill them?”
Jaezred turns to a figure standing off to the side of the room. “Miss Celia?”
A young, black-haired, half-elf woman steps forward a little meekly and does a small curtsy to the Councillors. “Hello… I’ve been reading Lillian’s notes. Um, Lillian was— uh…sorry, is one of Zola’s mothers. She seems to be the one who kept the Something Lonely in their house and had a few notes on them, but…well…” Celia holds up the tattered remains of an old journal, barely held together by string. “I’m afraid not much survived the attack on their home.”
“Was this one of these Somethings?” Aurelia asks.
“Ah, no. That seems to be a separate issue. But from what I can tell of her notes, I don’t believe they can be killed, exactly.”
The room goes quiet and the air goes tense as Aurelia and Thundercog both stare at Celia, expecting her to explain a little more. When nothing comes, Captain Thundercog breaks the silence: “And?”
Celia flinches slightly. “That’s…it. I’m sorry! She doesn’t have any other notes and it just seems like they were kept…busy somewhere?”
“BUSY!?” Thundercog rolls his eyes and loudly sighs his frustration.
“So how do we do that if they come back?” Aurelia asks, her gaze flitting between Celia and Zola. “You had one of these things in your home, correct? How was it kept there?”
There is a long pause before Zola says, “Um… We kept it under the stairs and…fed it cake?”
Thundercog glares at her, clearly not appreciating the answer. He looks at Celia, then at Jaezred. “Cake.”
“I’m telling the truth!” Zola exclaims. “We’ve had the Something since I was a baby, and there was never a problem with it! I don’t know why my mothers didn’t tell me about how dangerous it is. They hid so much from me. I don’t know… I wish…”
Her voice falters. Her ears heat up like a bush on fire as she realises she just had an outburst at the Captain of the City Watch.
Thundercog sees the state she is in and takes a breath. “Fine. So, what else do you know about these things? We have an entire city to protect here.”
Aurelia adds, “What were they… Buried, Vast, Dark… What exactly are these things if they can not be killed by normal means?”
Celia blushes as she tries to answer, “Um… Well, that I’m not really sure on yet. Queen Nicnevin has asked my team to find the Lonely, but I’m having some trouble tracking it down. It doesn’t really seem to be anywhere but is everywhere at the same time. Oh, but if I do find anything else, I will be sure to let you know!”
Zola almost jumps when she feels a hand lay on her shoulder. Jaezred had circled around to stand behind her. The warmth emanating from his palm — focusing on that helps her steady her spiking inner song. Slowly, her body relaxes again.
“The Somethings are the horrific aspects of existence,” he explains, his baritone voice somehow sounding deeper than usual. “They are our fears and our worst traits made manifest. They have been here since time immemorial, but never this…forward. Am I right so far, Miss Celia?”
“Y-Yes. They are not really creatures but…essences, maybe? I think.”
“Then it stands to reason that they cannot be killed. Can you kill the concept of drowning, Captain?” Jaezred lets go of Zola, folding his hands behind his back and walking further around the hall. “Now, Her Majesty the Queen said Lillian had ‘soothed’ the Something Lonely’s pain. I don’t know exactly what that means, but Lillian did give it a family.” He glances back at Zola again. “The five of you, living together in Haspar Knoll, meant that for a long time, the Something was not…lonely.”
There is something to what he’s saying. To Zola, it was downright inconceivable that the essence of solitude had been living in their house because…she had never felt lonely at home. Even when she was sulking and locked herself in her bedroom, she always felt a warm presence just beyond the door, knowing there were people there for her. The opposite of how she feels most days in recent months.
“I see,” Aurelia says, “though it doesn’t strike me to be so simple. If it were just making Lonely feel specifically not lonely, then surely the for the Something Buried would be to unearth it? How would you do that? And for that matter, what about the others? What exactly is Something Vast? Or Dangerous? Plenty of things are dangerous.”
“Oh, I must clarify, Archmage, ‘Dangerous’ is not one of the Somethings,” Jaezred says. “It seems to be a category of Somethings, for there could be Somethings out there that are not so malevolent as the ones we’re dealing with. At least, we think so… I’ll have a copy of the list made for you.”
Captain Thundercog waits for Aurelia to finish musing aloud before chiming in, “Well, as I see it, we have…things that we can’t kill, that could be anywhere at any time, we don’t really know what they are, nor how to find them, and they pose a risk to people lives if the story you’ve told today has any merit. That about cover it?” His voice gets surlier as his rant proceeds, ending with him snatching up his helmet and pacing for the door. He is halfway there before suddenly turning around.
“Where was this house, exactly?”
Jaezred and Zola’s eyes meet. She gives him a tiny, furtive shake of the head.
“Ah, I’m afraid the gentleman who hired Lady Zola has insisted upon remaining anonymous,” he replies to the Watch Captain.
Thundercog takes a deep breath and maintains a passive face that somehow feels much more threatening than a plain display of anger. “And I have an entire city, full of innocent people who know nothing of what is happening that could be affected, harmed, or even killed if I’m not able to do anything about this. So — where exactly is this house?”
“If you wish to violate a citizen’s civil liberties in the name of security, Captain, then that is something you should take up with the rest of the Council. Given that it is one of your citizens, we’d be happy to divulge that bit of private information if you get the permission,” Jaezred says smoothly. “And with all due respect, Captain — there is nothing you can do now. The Something has left and the owner of the house is cleaning up the place as we speak.”
Thundercog gives Jaezred a look that could be charged with a criminal offence itself, but Aurelia steps in before anything else can be said. “Captain, have your squads increase their presence around the city. If it really has left, then the best we can do is keep an eye out for anything else amiss in the city. I will speak with the rest of the Council and see if we can’t find out who this anonymous citizen is.”
The Captain gives her a curt nod, his hardened eyes lingering on the delegation who had delivered the bad news, before stomping out the door, slamming it behind him, and thundering down the corridor. As his heavy steps fade, Aurelia turns to Jaezred for a moment, then looks at Zola directly. “Why has this person asked to remain anonymous, exactly?”
“Sorry, Councillor, I can’t tell you that either,” she says in a genuinely apologetic tone. “But I can assure you that it’s not anything dangerous or very criminal. Otherwise I would’ve put an end to it myself.”
The Archmage gives Zola a long look. “Fine. You realise, of course, you have come in here with what is potentially dire news, then told us we can’t look into it ourselves… Whatever the reason, this isn’t being as helpful as you feel you may have wanted to be.” She sighs. “Is there anything else?”
“We’ll conduct an investigation at the scene ourselves,” Jaezred chimes in, nodding at Celia. “That way, the citizen’s anonymity is preserved and any intelligence gathered will be shared candidly with the Council.”
When Aurelia’s back is turned to her, Zola shoots him a small, grateful smile.
“Please be sure it is…” Aurelia sighs again. “Now, if you don’t mind, you’ve about tripled my work for the rest of the day.”
“Perhaps you’d like to hide under the stairs and be fed cakes as well?”
Now it’s Aurelia’s turn to give Jaezred a look that could be tried for an offence of its own. He puts his hands up in mock surrender, grinning cheekily as he backs out of the room. Zola gets up after him and rapidly curtsies to Aurelia before making for the exit too. Celia bows and quietly adds, “I’m really sorry we haven’t been more helpful!” as she follows the others out.
Starring Anthony as Sod, Goldbody, Aurelia, Thundercog, and Celia
She finds Sod kneeling on the floor before Goldbody — not speaking, just looking up at him whilst his mangled face stares back. There is an odd moment of stillness between the two before Goldbody glances up at their newest visitor. Sod spins around.
“Zola!” she cries out and runs over to hug the drow warrior’s leg.
“Hey, Sod!” Zola chuckles and bends down to give the kobold a proper, full-body hug, then nods at Goldbody. There appears to be more gold coins and trinkets in the alcove than the last time she was here. “Hi, Goldbody. Got more…donations, I see?”
Goldbody nods as Sod answers, “Oh, there have been so many nice people coming by lately!”
“That’s good to hear,” Zola says, though the thought crosses her mind that Velania may not have been too pleased about that. The small smile on her face fades as she purses her lips. “Um, listen, Sod. I have… Well, I learned something about what happened to your home.”
“You… You have?” The excited tone in Sod’s voice immediately vanishes, replaced by concern and a hint of upset.
Zola goes to sit on the floor beside Goldbody and pats a spot next to her for Sod. There is a moment of hesitation from Sod as she looks between Zola and Goldbody, before coming over and sitting down next to Zola.
“I promised you a story, didn’t I? So here’s one you can listen to,” Zola says to the golden elf. Then she looks at Sod again and takes a deep breath. “Okay, so I answered this job notice from a man living in the Dwarven Quarter. It’s just a few blocks from here. He said his basement went missing — the walls just closed in and it shrunk and disappeared, like what you said about your home. When we went inside his house, every inch of it was covered in dirt. This…lifeless, inert dirt coming from nowhere. And then, when we weren’t paying attention, every window and door in the house was blocked by walls of earth and we were trapped.”
Sod looks worried.
“When we were exploring the house, there were these tiny holes in the ground, like an inch-wide, as if something had been burrowing in and out of there. Did you ever notice anything like that in your home, Sod?”
She looks confused. “Tiny holes? Ummm… No? I don’t think so. The ground just kept coming in all the time.”
“Hmm, okay. Where was I? Oh, yeah, we were about to investigate one of those holes when I just…fell. I just fell down suddenly. When I came to, Heret, Jax, and I were in a dark, cramped tunnel and there was something huge coming towards us. It was this massive worm creature with purple skin and a star-shaped face. Did you ever see anything like that?”
“No! Was it a purple worm? I heard about them but never seen one!”
“No, not a purple worm. I’ve fought those before and this worm looked different, it looked like it came from the Far Realm. But it didn’t have an aberrant smell on it, and when it swallowed me, I didn’t end up in any kind of stomach, I was getting buried alive under tons and tons of earth.”
Zola pauses to cough into a fist. Rubbing and massaging her throat, she wipes her watering eye with the back of her hand. She can almost still taste the bitter dirt on her tongue, the phantom clumps of earth lodged in her windpipe.
Sod looks a little sad again. “That’s what I was scared of… It felt like everything was going to swallow me up. I tried to dig out but could never make it. Then one day I suddenly fell through and woke up in the tunnels where you found me.” She goes quiet for a moment. “Ummm, if I’m honest, I’m a little scared to go back underground now I’m out. I’ve always been underground but now it…it doesn’t feel safe.”
Zola nods sympathetically. “Yeah, I understand that, Sod. But it doesn’t seem like even above-ground is safe. You see, the worm wasn’t real. The three of us were actually trapped inside a crystal. The dwarf who hired us had brought it over from Faerûn when he moved here and it was on display in the basement. He said that one day, its colour turned black, and then the earth started coming in. This thing…this Something…was using the crystal as its focus. If Mendal and Beets hadn’t found and destroyed that crystal, I don’t know what would’ve happened to us.”
Sod frowns and stares down at her feet, clearly concerned that the surface world is not safe now either. However, Zola is too lost in her own thoughts to notice.
“I didn’t realise what It was until It was gone…” she continues, speaking to no one in particular. “It’s Something, but it’s a different Something. I-I-I can’t explain it.”
Her mothers never told her that there were more Somethings out there. Well, they never said a single word to her about The Something. She should have guessed that they were hiding more from her than just the story of her adoption.
She wants to be angry at them. She is trying to be. But she can’t. She just…misses them. So much.
“Are… Are you okay, Zola?”
“Huh?” Zola blinks and her attention snaps back to Sod, who is looking up at her, confused. “Oh, sorry, yeah. Just thinking aloud there.” She lays a hand on the little kobold’s back. “Don’t worry, Sod. The adventurers of the Dawnlands are strong and smart. We’ll put an end to this.”
“I’m okay. I feel much safer here now.” Sod puts on a brave smile, though a twitch in her snout betrays the lingering worry. She only wants to impress Zola.
Zola smiles back, but it is as false as Sod’s own.
Later that night, sitting in a chair in the centre of Town Hall, she does not give the same smile to Aurelia Archselon and Balto Thundercog. Both Councillors are seated behind a long table across from her, staring at her with grim expressions. Aurelia pinches the bridge of her nose, already stressed by what she’d just heard.
“Thank you for your testimony, Lady Zola.” Lord Jaezred Vandree steps back into her field of vision, standing before the Council — or rather, the only two members who could make this short-notice meeting. She focuses on the sight of his back, a small and brief refuge from the Councillors’ naked stares. “Before we proceed, does anyone have any questions for her ladyship?”
Thundercog is the first to speak. “So it’s dead? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Not dead. It left,” replies Zola.
“And why did it take so long for anyone to bring this forward? People are being put at risk here!”
“No one was aware of what had been causing these incidents until Lady Zola was on the scene, Captain,” Jaezred says. “Now we know that Something Buried is here in the Dawnlands, maybe with more of its kin. As such, we the delegation from the Witching Court are sharing everything we know of these things with the Daring Council.”
“Seems to me if you really knew these things were around, you could have come much sooner with this information—”
Aurelia, finally seeming to stop her thinking, lays a hand on Thundercog’s shoulder. “They are not bound to tell us, Captain, and the larger issue is what we do now… What else can we expect? More of these…Somethings? How many more? And what are they doing?”
“Indeed, you must expect more Somethings to show themselves in the coming weeks, Archmage. They respond to one another in a way we do not yet understand; their current agitation was triggered by Something Lonely losing its home and getting loose.”
Zola tries not to squirm at that. She squeezes her hand tightly, nails digging into her palms.
If only I hadn’t asked questions about my birth parents. Maybe then, none of this would be happening.
But at the same time…
She hears a soft rustling sound as Jaezred unrolls a parchment scroll that he’d been holding. “We know of nine Somethings: Lonely, Twisted, Vast, Lurking, Violent, Dark, Buried, Greedy, and Corrupt. The one that was just here in the city, as I mentioned, was Something Buried. Additionally, there was an incident a few months ago in our own lands that we now suspect to have been the work of a Something — a nature spirit going berserk and causing the deaths of a few civilians by acid burns. Likely it was Something Corrupt, though it had also escaped and its current whereabouts are unknown.”
“Escaped?” Thundercog barks. “So how do we kill them?”
Jaezred turns to a figure standing off to the side of the room. “Miss Celia?”
A young, black-haired, half-elf woman steps forward a little meekly and does a small curtsy to the Councillors. “Hello… I’ve been reading Lillian’s notes. Um, Lillian was— uh…sorry, is one of Zola’s mothers. She seems to be the one who kept the Something Lonely in their house and had a few notes on them, but…well…” Celia holds up the tattered remains of an old journal, barely held together by string. “I’m afraid not much survived the attack on their home.”
“Was this one of these Somethings?” Aurelia asks.
“Ah, no. That seems to be a separate issue. But from what I can tell of her notes, I don’t believe they can be killed, exactly.”
The room goes quiet and the air goes tense as Aurelia and Thundercog both stare at Celia, expecting her to explain a little more. When nothing comes, Captain Thundercog breaks the silence: “And?”
Celia flinches slightly. “That’s…it. I’m sorry! She doesn’t have any other notes and it just seems like they were kept…busy somewhere?”
“BUSY!?” Thundercog rolls his eyes and loudly sighs his frustration.
“So how do we do that if they come back?” Aurelia asks, her gaze flitting between Celia and Zola. “You had one of these things in your home, correct? How was it kept there?”
There is a long pause before Zola says, “Um… We kept it under the stairs and…fed it cake?”
Thundercog glares at her, clearly not appreciating the answer. He looks at Celia, then at Jaezred. “Cake.”
“I’m telling the truth!” Zola exclaims. “We’ve had the Something since I was a baby, and there was never a problem with it! I don’t know why my mothers didn’t tell me about how dangerous it is. They hid so much from me. I don’t know… I wish…”
Her voice falters. Her ears heat up like a bush on fire as she realises she just had an outburst at the Captain of the City Watch.
Thundercog sees the state she is in and takes a breath. “Fine. So, what else do you know about these things? We have an entire city to protect here.”
Aurelia adds, “What were they… Buried, Vast, Dark… What exactly are these things if they can not be killed by normal means?”
Celia blushes as she tries to answer, “Um… Well, that I’m not really sure on yet. Queen Nicnevin has asked my team to find the Lonely, but I’m having some trouble tracking it down. It doesn’t really seem to be anywhere but is everywhere at the same time. Oh, but if I do find anything else, I will be sure to let you know!”
Zola almost jumps when she feels a hand lay on her shoulder. Jaezred had circled around to stand behind her. The warmth emanating from his palm — focusing on that helps her steady her spiking inner song. Slowly, her body relaxes again.
“The Somethings are the horrific aspects of existence,” he explains, his baritone voice somehow sounding deeper than usual. “They are our fears and our worst traits made manifest. They have been here since time immemorial, but never this…forward. Am I right so far, Miss Celia?”
“Y-Yes. They are not really creatures but…essences, maybe? I think.”
“Then it stands to reason that they cannot be killed. Can you kill the concept of drowning, Captain?” Jaezred lets go of Zola, folding his hands behind his back and walking further around the hall. “Now, Her Majesty the Queen said Lillian had ‘soothed’ the Something Lonely’s pain. I don’t know exactly what that means, but Lillian did give it a family.” He glances back at Zola again. “The five of you, living together in Haspar Knoll, meant that for a long time, the Something was not…lonely.”
There is something to what he’s saying. To Zola, it was downright inconceivable that the essence of solitude had been living in their house because…she had never felt lonely at home. Even when she was sulking and locked herself in her bedroom, she always felt a warm presence just beyond the door, knowing there were people there for her. The opposite of how she feels most days in recent months.
“I see,” Aurelia says, “though it doesn’t strike me to be so simple. If it were just making Lonely feel specifically not lonely, then surely the for the Something Buried would be to unearth it? How would you do that? And for that matter, what about the others? What exactly is Something Vast? Or Dangerous? Plenty of things are dangerous.”
“Oh, I must clarify, Archmage, ‘Dangerous’ is not one of the Somethings,” Jaezred says. “It seems to be a category of Somethings, for there could be Somethings out there that are not so malevolent as the ones we’re dealing with. At least, we think so… I’ll have a copy of the list made for you.”
Captain Thundercog waits for Aurelia to finish musing aloud before chiming in, “Well, as I see it, we have…things that we can’t kill, that could be anywhere at any time, we don’t really know what they are, nor how to find them, and they pose a risk to people lives if the story you’ve told today has any merit. That about cover it?” His voice gets surlier as his rant proceeds, ending with him snatching up his helmet and pacing for the door. He is halfway there before suddenly turning around.
“Where was this house, exactly?”
Jaezred and Zola’s eyes meet. She gives him a tiny, furtive shake of the head.
“Ah, I’m afraid the gentleman who hired Lady Zola has insisted upon remaining anonymous,” he replies to the Watch Captain.
Thundercog takes a deep breath and maintains a passive face that somehow feels much more threatening than a plain display of anger. “And I have an entire city, full of innocent people who know nothing of what is happening that could be affected, harmed, or even killed if I’m not able to do anything about this. So — where exactly is this house?”
“If you wish to violate a citizen’s civil liberties in the name of security, Captain, then that is something you should take up with the rest of the Council. Given that it is one of your citizens, we’d be happy to divulge that bit of private information if you get the permission,” Jaezred says smoothly. “And with all due respect, Captain — there is nothing you can do now. The Something has left and the owner of the house is cleaning up the place as we speak.”
Thundercog gives Jaezred a look that could be charged with a criminal offence itself, but Aurelia steps in before anything else can be said. “Captain, have your squads increase their presence around the city. If it really has left, then the best we can do is keep an eye out for anything else amiss in the city. I will speak with the rest of the Council and see if we can’t find out who this anonymous citizen is.”
The Captain gives her a curt nod, his hardened eyes lingering on the delegation who had delivered the bad news, before stomping out the door, slamming it behind him, and thundering down the corridor. As his heavy steps fade, Aurelia turns to Jaezred for a moment, then looks at Zola directly. “Why has this person asked to remain anonymous, exactly?”
“Sorry, Councillor, I can’t tell you that either,” she says in a genuinely apologetic tone. “But I can assure you that it’s not anything dangerous or very criminal. Otherwise I would’ve put an end to it myself.”
The Archmage gives Zola a long look. “Fine. You realise, of course, you have come in here with what is potentially dire news, then told us we can’t look into it ourselves… Whatever the reason, this isn’t being as helpful as you feel you may have wanted to be.” She sighs. “Is there anything else?”
“We’ll conduct an investigation at the scene ourselves,” Jaezred chimes in, nodding at Celia. “That way, the citizen’s anonymity is preserved and any intelligence gathered will be shared candidly with the Council.”
When Aurelia’s back is turned to her, Zola shoots him a small, grateful smile.
“Please be sure it is…” Aurelia sighs again. “Now, if you don’t mind, you’ve about tripled my work for the rest of the day.”
“Perhaps you’d like to hide under the stairs and be fed cakes as well?”
Now it’s Aurelia’s turn to give Jaezred a look that could be tried for an offence of its own. He puts his hands up in mock surrender, grinning cheekily as he backs out of the room. Zola gets up after him and rapidly curtsies to Aurelia before making for the exit too. Celia bows and quietly adds, “I’m really sorry we haven’t been more helpful!” as she follows the others out.
Starring Anthony as Sod, Goldbody, Aurelia, Thundercog, and Celia